Palm TX Handheld
by Palm
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Digital Cameras Photo Reviews of Palm TX Handheld
Customer Review: A high end Handheld with nice features and price
Summary: 4 Stars
The Palm TX is Palm's new wireless handheld. It features a improved 320 x 480 pixel screen, Wi-Fi and Bluetooth wireless and 128MB of nonvolatile memory. The TX adds Wi-Fi at a very competitive price.
Palm has announced a new partnership with Microsoft, so the Palm TX may have the last Palm OS version that there will ever be. The Palm TX crams a lot of useful features into one tiny device that will many any gadget lover drool. In the Palm TX, they were able to fit Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity into one gadget, which is rare for Palm. It's a pretty well-rounded little PDA, but how does it all come together? Let's take a look...
At first glance, you may mistaken the Palm TX for PalmOne's earlier Tungsten T5 due to it's design. The traditional silver case is replaced with a sleek bluish-gray case. The Palm TX is quite compact too, measuring only 5 x 3 x 0.5-inches and weighs about 5 ounces, which is very pocket-friendly. Text and images are quite sharp and brilliant on the Palm TX's 4-inch diagonal LCD display. On the bottom of the display, there is a little toolbar for commonly used features, similar to what the Tungsten T5 has. At the top of the Palm TX, there is an SDIO/MMC slot for expansion,
stylus holder, power button, and a headphone jack.
Internally, the Palm TX features a 312-MHz processor, 128MB of memory, and wireless connectivity. The Palm TX's Wi-Fi capabilities are compatible with both WEP and WPA encrypted wireless networks. You can also access the Internet via using the TX's Bluetooth connection to connect via a Bluetooth cell phone. The SD memory slot can accept up to 4GB (I am not sure about the 8 GB Cards as I don't have one) of added memory, which makes storage for the TX almost unlimited. Also, DONOT use SDHC with the Palm TX as it will not work with it.
Software included with the Palm TX include the Palm OS 5.4, VersaMail 3.1, and Document To Go 7. There is also Pocket Tunes, which is a portable media player that will play your MP3, WMA, WAV, and Ogg Vorbis audio files. Palm also includes a few games and handy programs, like a nice calculator and world clock.
I have an iPod, and without a doubt, the Palm TX could never be compared to it for playing the music files. The iPod is easier and more flexible to use as a music player, So, your palm can play music files but don't expect too much.
The Palm TX performed pretty well too with me. It smoothly plays video, opens Word documents, and opens Web pages. The internet browser is not that good but it is still usable, don't expect the flexibility of the iphone's safari browser. The only weakness to the Palm TX is its battery life, which is just above 4 hours with the Wi-Fi antenna off. The average PDA gets at least above 5 hours and even up to 8 hours of battery life.
The main advantage of the Palm TX, its ability to run lots of medical and pharmaceutical software that can help medical students and professionals to make their job easily. I mainly bought it to run my favorite Pharmaceutical software such as Drug IX, Martindale, Medical directories and all of the nice pharmaceutical software library for the palm OS. It makes my life easier while working in research and in public pharmacies. It is a very good choice for medical students. Although, I think the iPhone will change these concepts when the same software is available for the iPhone.
Also, the palm TX freezes from time to time but it reboots after reset very quickly not as slow as the Palm LifeDrive.
In conclusion, the Palm TX is a welcomed addition to the Palm PDA family. It brings a lot to the table, including excellent Wi-Fi and Bluetooth connectivity features as well as a lot of expansion opportunities, including large Secure-Digital memory cards. The included multimedia applications also make the Palm TX an excellent portable media player. The TX is great for the on-the-go
person who wants all their data in one place and the chance to listen to some music in between.
Finally,
Advantages:
* Excellent Screen
* Dual Wireless (Bluetooth and Wi-Fi)
* Rich Software, one handed operation
* Very good for medical software
DisAdvantages:
* not 100% stable
* Low battery life
* No Voice Rec, Vibrate, LED
* No included cradle
Finally,
It is a very good buy for the Price (259 $), Highly recommended for medical students.
Customer Review: Slower and less features than other Tungsten's
Summary: 3 Stars
First, I had to give the T|X 3 stars because it does run the best OS in the business, the Palm OS, no owned by Access.
The problem with the T|X is Palm Inc.
For those you who might have owned a Palm system, BUT NOT the Tungsten T5 or the Tungsten T3, will love the T|X. Any Windoz users will be thrilled with it as well and probably have saved at least $200 over getting a Windoz PDA. You can't really compare the raw Specs of a Windoz PDA to a Palm PDA. The reason is the Palm OS is a much more efficient operating system, so the Palm PDA, will run slicker, be simpler, faster, have better graphics and be WAY more reliable and about $200 cheaper than the heavy overhead Windoz PDA OS. It is kind of like looking at the size, performance and speed of Intrernet Explorer to Firefox.
Okay, for those T3 and T5 users like myself, here is what the story is:
1. The CPU is Slower than both the T3 and T5's CPU. The T|X has 312 mhz, while the T3 runs off of a 400 MHz and the T5 runs off of a 416 MHz processor.
2. The T|X has 128 MGs of total RAM (100 active), while the T5 has 256 megs of RAM with 215 megs available.
3. While the screen is excellent abnd spec wise the same as the T5 and T3, I couold swear that the T3 has a brighter and clearer screen. It does seem to be the same as the T5.
4. The T|X has wi-fi built in. It is an extra $90 or $99 for Wi-fi for the T3 and T5. A definate plus for those who need Wifi.
5. The T|X supports Bluetooth, unfortunately, it still have Bluetooth version 1.1, as both the T5 and the T3 do. Version 2.0 is taking over as the standard for Bluetooth, but it should have AT LEAST version 1.2. This limits the speed and distance that Bluetooth uses, when comparing it to 2.0 or 1.2.
6. The uniut is rather cute.
7. The USB to T|X cablesare different than any of the other Palm's. So if you have some existing USB connect cables, they will not work.
8. The battery is still non-replacable and has slightly less power than the T5 and is a lot better than the underpowered battery that Palm threw into the T3. Because of the lower CPU speed and memory, the strain on the recharable battery is less and stays charged for longer than the T5 and a lot longer than the T3.
9. Unlike the T3, but like the T5, there is a lack of a microphone to record voice notes, there are no visual OR vibration on the alarm like on the T3.
10. I would summarize it as a less powerful PDA than the T5, but has wi-fi built in and the rest of it is like a twin to the T5. I am disappointed that it is LESS powerful than prior units.
11. It is at a far superior price point to any Windoz PDA, not even close. I have now seen the price of the T|X dropping to even as low as $175.00. At least $200-300 less than a Windoz PDA that is a decent PDA.
What I am truly hoping for is that the new owners of Palm PDA, gets some creative licensees for Palm OS. I know I was thrilled to hear that LG, makers of one of the best cell phones, CD/DVD roms, appliances, monitors, etc is a Palm OS licensee.
Since Palm Os is not owned by the destructive management team that took over Palm Inc after split, I think we should see some great stuff and an expansion of functionality of the Palm OS, which should kick the heck out of whatever Microsoft can do or would do. Control of market place rather than creativity and innovation is what I think Microsoft's motto should be.
I am delighted that England seems to be the only nation (certainly not the U.S.), who is not allowing Microsoft to buy off the politicians or buy out its ocmpetition. They are hold Microsoft to its agreed anti-trust rules. That means, more IT jobs, better hardware and much better software, choices , innovation, competitive pricing for the entire IT market place.
Monopolies are the destroyers of a free enterprise system.
Jon
For those who have used those two superior products, it is a REAL disappontment, I wish I looked at the specs first.
The T|X has virtually no new technology that Palm has not released before. It is like they took some parts that were hanging around, put in WiFi, which one had to pay extra for, as well as put in a slower CPU and put in 1/2 the Memory of its prior T5. Plus they did something to the grafetti language where there is a delay now when I
Customer Review: An Appraisal and Some Recommendations
Summary: 4 Stars
I have been using Palm devices since the very first Palm Pilot. Before that, I used Palm's Graffitti on my Newtons. My phone is a Treo 650. Without question, the T|X is superior to all the rest. Oh, and I use it in combination with a Macintosh, (syncing via BlueTooth, usually) but have used it with Windows XP as well.
A hand-held device slim and light enough to fit into virtually any shirt or jacket without being obtrusive, able to communicate via BlueTooth, infrared and Wi-Fi, with a screen that can be rotated 90 degrees, large and crisp enough to permit even my 62-year old eyes to browse web sites and view MP4 video, and with the ability to accept at least 2 gigs of SD memory, this is the device to own unless you are seeking the kind of game capability that only a PlayStation Portable provides.
Of course there are cons. I suppose the greatest is the lack of a built-in microphone. But even that has been hacked by a very clever company that offers both a headset with boom mike and a tiny plug-in mic. Competing with the lack of a mic is the fact that the battery is sealed in the case, so that you can't carry another, fully charged, battery as a spare. There are external rechargeables to deal with this, but they are one more thing to remember, or to lose. Another negative is the lack of a Flash player, which makes YouTube and similar sites unusable, unless you know something I am not aware of. Of course there is no camera, either, but it's happy to accept your camera's SD card for either viewing or emailing.
These things said, here are some recommendations:
If you are going to use it for email from a corporate or university server, spend the necessary bucks on SnapperMail. It's more versatile than the included Versamail. But if possible, consider the mobile view of GMail (Google's free email service.) Not only is it beautifully designed, it's free. I have my other accounts forwarded to GMail and both read and send from there using the browser.
TCPMP is a simply astonishing and free media player, with additional audio controls to boost and adjust the sound above what the T|X's controls provided. I am no audiophile, but I have used the T|X with a variety of earphones, including the Sony and Bose noise-cancelling variety on long flights, and simply cannot complain about sound. The only minor complication is that the AAC decoder must be tracked down and installed separately. For reasons of copyright, apparently, it does not come bundled with TCPMP. But a bit of astute Googling should solve that problem.
With TCPMP on the T|X and something like the free HandBrake on the Mac or equivalent free software under Windows, one is able to convert one's DVD to a 700 MB file, drop it onto a 1 GB SD card, and take along a movie. Of course the picture is small. In fact, it's far better for viewing a favorite movie than seeing a particular title for the first time. But I own an embarrassing number of media-playback devices, some with larger screens and/or greater capacities, and the size and weight of the T|X trump them all. So much so that I simply passed on the video iPod and will continue to until its screen is significantly larger or I can afford those video goggles that are now available.
The latest version of Pocket Tunes is both a fine audio player and your link to Internet radio. Include it in your budget if MP3, playlists, podcasts and streaming audio are important. They are to me, so I wouldn't be without Pocket Tunes.
VoIP via the T|X appears to be possible. With the external headset and some new software, others are reporting success. My router is not letting me do that from home, and I have yet to try it elsewhere, but don't be surprised if you hear that people are using their T|Xes as Wi-Fi phones.
Finally, (well, there is no "finally," but I have to stop somewhere) I own a Bluetooth keyboard so that I can use the T|X as a sort of substitute for my laptop. They work flawlessly together. Would I try to do a lot of detailed formatting and revision on that 4-inch screen? Of course not. But for sheer text entry, such as a first draft of a paper, it's just fine.
So here is the final indicator of how well I like this device: If it were to break, or if I were to lose it, I would buy another. There are very few similar bits of technology I can say that about.
Customer Review: First Impressions: Not Perfect, But Still Impressive
Summary: 4 Stars
I've owned a Palm Vx since shortly after they first came out, which was probably about 7 years ago. I've used it off and on up until just recently, and even today with its grayscale screen and 8MB of memory it's still a solid little PDA that gets the job done.
Still, I knew it was time to upgrade because so much of the software I wanted to use simply wouldn't work on the Vx's minimal memory and antiquated (albeit stable) OS. So I asked for and received a Palm TX as a gift recently.
Here are my impressions after only one week of use:
PROS
- The Palm OS itself. There's nothing sweeter than turning on your Palm and instantly the screen comes on right where you left off. No booting up, no shutting down, just instant gratification the way it should be. Now if only the people at Microsoft could figure out how to do the same with Windows!
- Great graphics and screen quality. The included music video clip looks very good, although I'm sure it falls short of an iPod/iPhone.
- Navigation has a very "fluid" feel to it. Screens appear and disappear smoothly. You can tell Palm has put some thought into the interface design of the latest OS.
- Expandable memory slot. I have yet to use it, but I'm looking forward to popping in an SD card loaded with MP3s and trying out the TX as a portable MP3 player. It's also a great way to keep your data separate from the programs, assuming the program you use supports storing its data on a memory card.
- Collapsible graffiti area. Gives you full access to the screen real estate when viewing photos, videos, spreadsheets, the Internet, or other documents.
- Rotatable landscape/portrait mode. 'Nuff said.
- WiFi. I did have some trouble setting it up at first, but the problem turned out to be mine and not the Palm's. I finally sorted it out and bingo: I had the Internet in the palm of my hand!
- Bluetooth enabled (although I have yet to try it out).
- Decent collection of software to use right out of the gate. So far I've only needed to install a few of my trusty old programs to the TX. Documents To Go is especially cool, giving you the ability to open and work with MS Office Documents.
CONS
- Graffiti 2. Ugh -- I'm already looking forward to reverting my TX back to Graffiti 1, as soon as I get up the nerve to do it (apparently you can't go back to Graffiti 2 once you convert to Graffiti 1). Yes, I know Palm had no choice because of a legal settlement, but they should have at least settled out of court and bought the rights to Graffiti 1 or something.
- Tactile feel of the graffiti writing area is kind of mushy, as if you're writing on a thin film of Jello. My Vx had a hard glass surface that took a real beating, whereas the TX screen feels soft like I'm going to dent it with the stylus. I think a good screen protector film is needed here, something with some texture to it to give it a better tactile feel.
- Palm Desktop. Yes, it works, but Palm has done little to enhance this software since I bought my Vx back in 2001. That's a long time to go without a significant upgrade, if you ask me.
- The bundled encryption feature is painfully slow, too slow to make it useful on a regular basis, which sort of defeats the purpose.
- Although it's got 16x the amount of memory that my old Vx does, 128MB of onboard memory just doesn't seem adequate in these days of multi-gigabyte iPods and other MP3 players. I have an MP3 player that's at least 3 years old and barely the size of a pack of chewing gum, and even that has 1GB of flash memory.
- The sync cable has a terrible plug on the end. The engineers at Palm really botched this one. You have to push hard to get it into the TX, and each time I go to remove it I feel like I'm going to break it off. Plus it's all too easy to accidentally press the HotSync button when you're trying to remove the cable from your Palm. A major engineering faux pas, in my opinion.
I'll probably update this review as time goes on and I've got more to add, but for now if you're a Palm enthusiast you'd be doing yourself a favor to upgrade to the TX if you haven't already done so.
Customer Review: Best Palm so far...
Summary: 5 Stars
During the past 10 years, I have owned a series of Palms beginning with the Palm III, and the TX has almost all the functions that I have been dreaming about for years.
This is what I like:
Well constructed. Color screen is bright and works well. It shows videos and photos without any problems. It has a strong metal-like hard plastic body and is solid. The body and screen are much nicer than my previous Palm, a Zire 71.
A multimedia machine. The ability to use an SD card with up to 2 gigabytes of storage has turned the TX into a portable multimedia device that rivals the ipod. When I purchased the TX, I picked up a 512 meg SD flash card. As SD card prices have declined, I bought a 1 gig and most recently a 2 gig card. I have filled them up with mp3, jpeg and mpeg4 video files. By using the Pocket DVD Wizard, (a shareware application) I am able to convert DVDs and play them on the TX.
Built-in WiFi finally! I have been waiting for Palm to offer built-in WiFi for several years and my wish has finally been granted. Although download speeds can be slow and browsing websites on such a small screen isn't fun. The browser does work and it is nice to be able to get online. I have gotten used to checking my Yahoo and Gmail web-based email accounts. (More on using the VersaMail later.)
Edit Microsoft Word, Excel and Powerpoint files. The DataViz Documents To Go Professional suite comes standard on the TX. This allows you to create and edit Word, Excel and Powerpoint files on the TX. I haven't run into any compatibility issues transferring Office files between the TX and my desktop. This is great value. (Alas, no spell check. If you want spell check, you need to upgrade to the Premium edition.)
Leave your laptop at home. When I purchased my TX, Palm included a mail-in coupon for a free wireless keyboard. This is a great addition. I know Palm's Graffiti language, but when it comes to typing, a keyboard beats a stylus. The keyboard folds up into a small package and it fits into my coat along with the TX. Now when I visit an office, the library or a bookstore caf', I can just take it out and start typing. Unfortunately, I noticed that Palm discontinued the keyboard give-away shortly after I got mine, but I still recommend picking up a wireless keyboard because it makes the Palm so much more useable.
Now for the features that I wish Palm had included and/or improved:
The biggest omission is there is no built-in microphone. This is strange because microphones have been included in most high-end Palms and Handsprings for several years. It would have been great if Palm had included one because combined with the WiFi, this device would be perfect as a WiFi phone using Skype. I have friends using Skype with their Windows Pocket PC phones. It would also be nice to be able to dictate memos.
A better email client. Now that the Palm TX has WiFi, an email client is a necessity. I have found that the current version of VersaMail that comes with most Palms, works OK with certain email services like Gmail and AOL, but I cannot get it to work with my hosting company's email. There is no way to set up email authentication that most hosting companies require. I understand that Snapper email, a shareware program, does a better job, but I haven't had a chance to try it out.
Incomplete multimedia software bundle. The Pocket-Tunes program that comes with the TX is an improvement over the Real Player included with previous Palms, but it still lacks the ability to play many formats, including Windows Media. I am sure this is a licensing issue and fortunately, all my music files are MP3, which it handles well. The TX also does not come with a video player; fortunately, I was able to download the free, TCPMP (The Core Pocket Media Player).
Overall, I think the TX is the best Palm yet. I have been using it for nearly four months without any problems. I know eventually, I will replace it with a Treo. But for now, with its larger screen and ability to edit Microsoft Office documents, I like the TX.